The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit

chapter eleven; dangerously safe

Hinata slammed the door of her balcony shut and locked it tight. Frantically, she ran around the room, making sure that all of her windows were locked as well. Her heart had probably never beat so fast before in her entire life; her head spun from a combination of alcohol and anxiety.

Once she knew she was secure, the kunoichi went and fell on her bed, still awestruck.

All she could think about was how Naruto would react if he found out about this; how the whole town would react. There was one more thing she was upset about though, the other part of this situation that was confusing her brain and making her feel dirty.

It was during that split second before she realized what was happening; as his face grew closer to hers, and their lips almost touched, where a flutter of ecstasy ran through her chest. She'd felt it before, ages ago, the first time Naruto ever kissed her. And now, in a drunken mess, she was thinking about what might have happened if she had let Sasuke kiss her.

Shortly after that, she drifted into sleep.

When Sasuke woke up, he found himself passed out in some ditch, confused and disoriented. His head pounded, and when he remembered the events of the previous night, he felt even worse.

Wow, she actually rejected me.

She was drunk, and she rejected me.

He shook his head, and ran to the nearest bush to puke out whatever he had left in his stomach. He couldn't stop thinking about her, and the way she literally slapped him and kicked him out of her house. A woman had never acted that way towards him before; not a single one. Even women who were considerably older than him swooned at his words and stumbled over his touches.

Yet this one...

No.

Sasuke stood up and brushed off his pants. I will make her want me, he thought with a smirk, before he fell back over and vomited in the bush.

Hinata had a scheduled meeting with the Hokage that day. She was hung over, and still freaking out about the night before, but she managed to make herself seem calm and content as always. As she entered the building and drew closer to Naruto's office, she heard two voices; one belonging to him, the other to Sakura. Did he forget about our meeting? She thought as her heart sunk. With a sigh, she knocked on the door anyway. Sakura was the one to answer. She looked at Hinata as if she were a ghost.

"O-Oh, h-hey..." Sakura awkwardly mumbled, sending Naruto a death glare.

"Oh, Hinata-chan, I forgot about our meeting. Come in." The blonde spoke nonchalantly. "I'll talk to you later, Sakura-chan." The pink haired girl nodded before scampering away. Hinata shut the door behind her.

"How could you forget?" She asked, irritated.

"I just got caught up talking to Sakura-chan." He shuffled some papers and set them aside. "So you want to take up another mission already?"

"Yes."

Naruto let out an elongated sigh. "Hinata-chan, I'm worried about you and how you are constantly on missions. You're never in town anymore. Why don't you stay for a few days-"

"And do what?" She cut him off, meeting his stare.

He awkwardly paused and gulped. "Well, you could visit friends or something, I dunno... You just shouldn't overwork yourself like this."

"Are you speaking to me as a Hokage, or what?" Hinata's question startled him. Naruto could tell that she was hung over and in an angry mood, and seeing Sakura definitely did not help the situation.

"As a friend..."

Hinata felt the familiar sensation of tears welling up inside of her. She bit her lip. "Please, I want to go on another mission."

"B-But-"

"I'm asking you, as a friend, to just let me work."

Naruto observed the face of the girl he'd once been in love with, and a strong feeling of guilt filled his chest. This was not the Hinata he once knew. With a last sigh, the Hokage nodded. "Okay. Well, I haven't actually received any requests since you returned from the Mist." He flipped through a few papers and started to read off one. "But there is one thing. I know the Mizukage called off the search for the missing-nin, but shortly after you returned, I sent out a few parties to keep looking."

"I wasn't aware." Hinata said, her interest sparked.

"I'm just a bit concerned about this, and when you told me that you were attacked in the Wave country, it only added to that." Naruto's voice was fully serious; Hinata hadn't heard him speak like that in a while. "Apparently, Aki Daichi has been spotted in Amegakure."

Hinata's heart thumped. "T-The Rain?"

"Yes. It's dangerous; to this day, I still don't know much about what happened to that village after the war. I sent a few ANBU to investigate, and sure enough, Aki Daichi was spotted..."

"Do you think this has something to do with terrorist activity?" Hinata's voice grew shaky.

"Yeah. That's what I'm worried about. I need somebody to infiltrate their society; find out what's really going on in that village. An undercover spy."

She paused for a few moments. "I'll do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"It's going to be extremely dangerous, Hina-"

"If you didn't think I could do it, then why would you even tell me about it?" The kunoichi grew snappy with the Hokage, as she was fully aware that Naruto wasn't actually worried about her. She wouldn't be alone, after all.

"You're strong, you're smart, and we need your byakugan. I know you can do it. But I'm giving you the option not to."

"I'll leave in the morning." Hinata wanted nothing more than to snap on Naruto about Sasuke, and tell him that she knew the truth, but she bit her tongue and turned her back to him. "May I leave now?"

"Uh, yeah... Just come see me before you go, okay?"

"Right."

Hinata packed her clothes away in her bag, something she'd gotten used to doing lately. She knew exactly what to bring and where to put it off by heart now; there was no more of that scrambling around to find things. She was pulling a few shirts out of her drawer, when she heard a tap at her window. Sasuke leaded against the wall of her balcony casually, in his full ANBU uniform, minus the mask. His face was starting to grow familiar to her.

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Hinata went up and opened the door just enough to poke her head out.

"What do you want?" She queried.

"I want to talk." He stated, taking a step closer to her. She backed away and he opened the door, letting himself in. Hinata took a few wary steps away from him so she wouldn't be too close. Her heart thumped with anxiety once again.

"W-What do you want to talk about?" She muttered.

"Uh..." Sasuke awkwardly scratched his head and averted her eyes. "Look, I'm not really good at this kinda shit. Okay? But I'm sorry for trying to kiss you last night... I was drunk, I don't know what came over me."

Hinata was taken back, to say the least. "Y-You're apologizing?" She asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, so what?" He sneered. She couldn't help but notice how childish Sasuke could be sometimes, in such a cute way. She then mentally slapped herself for thinking he was being cute.

"Um, well thanks. It's okay I guess." Hinata played with her fingers nervously.

The Uchiha sat down on the corner of her bed. "So, about this mission..."

"Naruto told you to follow me, didn't he?"

"Of course. This is an S-ranked mission, how many of these have you really gone on?"

"I-I dunno..." The girl sat down beside him at a comfortable distance away. She didn't want to show how nervous she really was.

"You don't need to worry."

Her head snapped to him. "W-Worry? I'm not worrying."

"As long as you're with me, you won't get hurt. That's all I'm saying. There's a reason Naruto chose me to be your bodyguard rather than anyone else."

"T-Thanks..."Hinata was in shock as his words, but she had to admit that she really did feel safe hearing him say that. Dangerously safe. "Sasuke-san, have you ever been to Amegakure before?"

"Yeah. It's a strange place. I assume you've never seen it."

"No, n-never."

"Like I said, you don't have anything to worry about."

She met his eyes and smiled at him, despite his apathetic looking face. He looked away, and for a split second there, Hinata could have sworn she saw him blush.

A/N: Thanks for the lovely reviews as always guys! :) You all motivate me to keep on writing this story, and I'm so happy with the direction it's going in. I hope you all are too! I'll be updating again very soon. Please drop a review and let me know how you feel about this chapter! :D

Also, if you notice any grammatical or format errors, please point them out to me and I will fix them! And if you happen to notice any loopholes in the story, please point those out for me too x) a lot of the time when I'm writing a story, I'll forget some of the things I've already wrote and accidentally create a loophole. xD